


Careful

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, F/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-12
Updated: 2011-08-12
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wonders why it feels like she's being careful around him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Careful

He's been careful not to touch her since Kanaan came to live in the city.

It's a conscious pulling-back on his part, a fear that if he lets himself get too close, he'll forget where the lines are drawn. Another man has a claim on her time and her life, someone that John can't out-alpha: the father of her son.

In the seeping cold of the Atlantis night, though, Teyla offers him a hand, and he takes it without thinking. Her skin is freezing as his fingers close around hers, but he feels the leap of her pulse beneath his index finger - a warm beat in the midst of the steady chill of the wind.

"You okay?"

"I could ask the same of you," she says with that ineffable intonation that is entirely Teyla - part honest inquiry, part dry humour. Then, in an entirely different voice, she asks, "Do you think he is gone?"

He understands what she's asking - and why she's asking, too. "We'll dredge for the body," he says.

"He made a clone of Carson."

"Teyla." She dropped his hand once he was up, as though his flesh burned her. Now John reaches for her again, his hand over hers. Adrenaline makes him incautious for once, the life-or-death thrill pulsing hard through his veins. "We'll get the body and find out."

Wind whips hair across her face as she squeezes his hand once and withdraws it to push it from her eyes. There’s no rush to the motion, just a careful deliberation. And John watches her as she turns away from the edge and him and climbs back through the window into the city.

He wonders why he feels like she's being careful, too.


End file.
